Road Hog : Kitsch: During its nearly 60 years, the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile has been transformed from humble sausage to deluxe dog.

Stop. Enough already. They’ve heard the ones about relishing the job, watching their buns, cutting the mustard, being on a roll, hot-dogging through life, playing ketchup to Farmer John and becoming chili dogs in winter.

Plus, of course, a million raunchy variations of whatever construction workers will yell at relentlessly smiling, ruthlessly optimistic young women who drive a giant wienie.

“There isn’t a moment when someone doesn’t come up with what they think is the ultimate one-liner,” says Wienermobile chauffeur Ashley White, 23, who grins at all moldies as if Comedy Store originals and smiles at the X-rated as if spoken in tongues. “So we’re always cooking up new lines to replace those that will be retired to the doghouse.”

Ouch.

“Want to travel up front with me?” asks Monica Lopez, 22-year-old co-pilot of the 1995 Wienerbago--gee, it must be contagious--whose original design predates the Volkswagen Beetle. “You can ride shotbun.”

Wince.

Yet Burma Shave and Cal Worthington didn’t make it on subtlety.

And largely by obsessive drumming of one product and the silly, cartoon vehicle that always came with it, Oscar Mayer Foods has plumped from small family meat packers in the ‘30s to a Fortune 500 company and General Foods adoptee of the ‘90s.

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Seven generations of Oscar Mayer Wienermobiles--from a sheet-metal shell cobbled by Oscar’s nephew Carl in 1936 to the current fiberglass art form designed by a Californian who has drawn for Mazda and Mattel--have spent almost 60 years huckstering America.

In that time, from Sheboygan to San Dimas, we all wished we were an Oscar Mayer wiener. ‘Cause everyone would be in love with us. Or were glad we weren’t. ‘Cause everyone would take a bite.

This humble sausage--known to keep for months in fraternity house refrigerators while undergoing spectacular changes in color--has evolved from a tube of ground, spice-camouflaged offal to a variety of clinically processed, government monitored dogs for all diets.

Wiener Whistles have appreciated in history from two-penny World Fair souvenirs to $25 collectibles--with some early versions claiming the special infamy of being banned by the FDA as toddler chokers.

And the nostalgic, wonderful, off-to-see-the-wizard Wienermobile--once little more than a motorized hot dog stand toddling between Illinois county fairs--now claims a public recognition factor ready to rival Ronald McDonald and the Goodyear blimp.

As with the blimp and Ronnie, there is more than one Wienermobile. The 1995 fleet is a package of six priced at $600,000 per half-dozen and built on GMC motor home chassis. They come with armchair seating for six and a sound system armed with 23 versions of the Oscar Mayer jingle, from country to rap.

Crewed by pairs of fresh college students and graduates such as Lopez and White, they carry the wiener word and dispense countless thousands of Wiener Whistles from the Super Bowl to Mardi Gras and back to Los Angeles. Where the Wienermobile will attend . . . the Oscars, of course.

The wienie wagon budget is $1 million annually, which isn’t exactly chopped bologna. But as Oscar Mayer’s managers are quick to point out, one year on the road throughout the United States and Canada develops a broader audience for a longer time, and with better taste at less expense than buying 30-second commercials on “O.J. Tonight.”

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Just what does go into a Wienermobile these days?

First, White, from Warsaw, Ind., a Purdue public relations graduate. Then Lopez, an information systems senior at San Diego State who was easily detoured by Oscar Mayer recruiters and academic boredom into a 12-month sabbatical wrangling a Wienermobile across 11 Western states.

Neither is a vegetarian. Both are schooled in tiptoeing a five-ton, 27-foot, hulking frank through big-city traffic. Where, to the amazement of oncoming traffic, a simple turn usually fills two right lanes and most of the left side of the road with a wienie bigger than an orange Shamu.

White and Lopez say their fashion senses certainly will tolerate a year of wearing little else but outfits slashed with Heinz red on a background of French’s yellow.

Yet there is no guarantee their affections for the national fast food--we chew on 37 million hot dogs daily, to the unalloyed joy of the makers of Alka-Seltzer--will survive huge helpings of the Wienermobile’s condiment decor. Like relish-green upholstery. Mustard and ketchup splotches on the carpeting. Even a dashboard and glove boxes shaped like hot dogs and buns.

They may even start revering the corporate power that denied one styling suggestion of designer Harry Bradley of Los Angeles. He wanted to put oval, slanted portholes on the tasty, first bite end of the Wienermobile to simulate extra blobs of mustard and ketchup. Urp.

(An aside: Bradley, who designed Mattel’s Hot Wheels and the NFL Football Buggies, says the shape and nomenclature of the product made the Wienermobile a very risky undertaking. Fears were realized when he was sandwiched in a radio interview between throaty female disc jockeys.

“At the end, one said to me: ‘Harry, how fast does your wienie go?’ I saw my wife wagging her finger. All I could say was: ‘I never exceed the speed limit.’ ”)

All commercial nonsense, statistics, media hits and market penetrations aside, each drive for White and Lopez attracts pressured, harried persons. They move toward this ridiculous icon, slow their steps and start smiling with minds reaching for softer, younger times.

“It’s an amazing feeling to be creating memories for some and restoring memories for others,” Lopez says. “Often I think back and wonder how many snapshots I’ve been in, how many videotapes have been made . . . and how many times we may have changed the worst day in someone’s life.

“This vehicle brings magic.”

Also two magicians who explain it all with great fun to a beginning generation, while patiently indulging parents and their long tales remembering when.

Didn’t a Wienermobile once bring Santa Claus to New York? You bet. To Gimbel’s in the ‘40s.

How much does this thing weigh? About 100,000 hot dogs.

From bar doorways, crosswalks and bus windows, in a variety of pitches and an assortment of accents: “Oh, I wish I were an Oscar Mayer wiener. . . .”

And who was the fella who once gave me a Wiener Whistle? Ah, Little Oscar. The World’s Smallest Chef.

In truth, from 1936, when even a little person was a snug fit inside a 13-foot hot dog on wheels, maybe two dozen Little Oscars wore the toque blanche of les chefs chien chaud.

Of course, neither the idea nor a Little Oscar could work today.

That brings a sadness to Vince Vella of San Diego. He is 50 inches tall and for 13 years traveled as a Little Oscar.

“If they asked me, I’d jump back into my little white suit and go back to work tomorrow,” he says. “I never felt exploited. If it hadn’t been for Oscar Mayer, who knows what kind of work I’d be doing.

“Political correctness is a bunch of. . . .”

Well, it didn’t rhyme with hot dog .